TRENTON — The former governor responsible for New Jersey’s tough gun laws said today that now is the time to make them even stricter by enacting a package of 22 gun control bills passed by the Assembly on Monday.

On the other side, a leader of New Jersey’s gun rights movement said he may have to resort to non-violent civil disobedience to stop the bills’ progress.

Former Gov. Jim Florio – a Democrat who in the early 1990s battled the National Rifle Association to enact the state’s semi-automatic weapons ban – said at a Statehouse press conference today that the pro-gun organization wants to “run out the clock” and “wait for people to become disengaged again.”

“History is full of examples of relatively small cadres of highly disciplined, motivated zealots with good discipline, good funding being able to hold off the public interest,” said Florio. “What we have to do is engage people in the process.”

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Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said Friday his house will take up at least some of the measures by the end of April. But he said some bills would have to be amended, while others would not make it through the upper house.

The purpose of the press conference was to introduce a new coalition of groups favoring more gun control measures. The members includes pediatricians, religious organizations, liberal activists and labor unions. Bryan Miller, executive director of Heeding God’s Call – a faith-based anti gun violence organization – listed well over a dozen members and said it would grow.

Among the bills they’re pushing for are ones that would create “weapons free school zones” (A1387), require background checks for private gun sales (A3748) and allow authorities to seize guns if a mental health professional determines the owner is a threat to himself or others (A3754).

The bill to create the school zones is particularly controversial. Republicans have pointed out that it may allow those caught with illegal weapons to plead guilty to a municipal ordinance and then avoid state prosecution that would carry tougher penalties.

“I’m smart enough to know that the first version of the bill is not the final version,” said Wendell Steinhauer, vice president of the NJEA, which is a member of the coalition. “I trust our Legislature to make the right moves.”

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Meanwhile, Frank Fiamingo, president of the New Jersey 2nd Amendment Society and an organizer of a recent protest against the legislation, urged his members to consider civil disobedience to derail it.

“We have tried the courts, we have tried the Legislature, and we have reached out to the executive branch, all to no avail,” Fiamingo said in a post on Facebook late Thursday night. “In a sincere effort to avoid an unhappy outcome, we must attempt to reach the public through acts of non-violent civil disobedience.”

In a phone interview, Fiamingo declined to say what kind of civil disobedience he’s considering, but said “you can look back at the 60s and you can figure from that.”